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Exway Wave Review

The Exway Wave is an amazing short electric skateboard. I'd even go as far to say that it is probably the best. Read on to see why I love it.

Exway Wave

Best Features

Top Speed: 23mph / 38kmh

Range: 15 Mile / 24km

Quick-Swap Battery

Swappable Motor System

Use Any Wheels

US$749

Use code ESKHUB for $15 Off

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The Exway Wave is one of the best mini electric skateboards you can buy at the moment.

And not just by a little bit.

Taking into account all of the features that it has and its performance spec sheet it is overall my favourite cruiser electric skateboard.

And starting at $699 for the hub motor version and $749 for the Riot Kit setup, the amount of value that you get with the Wave is a no brainer.

But I’m going to talk about all the ups and downs in this Exway Wave review so you can make your mind up for yourself.

I’ll take you through all of the performance tests like the range test and top speed test in a second.

But first I need to show you some interesting features of the Exway Wave so you can really understand why I love this eboard so much.

First of all, it has a simple and easy quick-swap battery system. So far, this is the best implementation of a swappable battery that I’ve seen.

There’s no screws, cables or tools required. All you need to do is press this button and the battery slides straight out.

This means you can carry as many batteries as you want and extend your range to as far as you want. And you won’t have to pull out a screwdriver to lift it out. It’s literally swapped in less than 10 seconds.

Exway Wave Quick Battery Swap

My next favourite things are the lights.

It comes standard with rear lights.

And you can use the Exway App to control the behaviour of these lights.

You can set it to Throttle mode so that they act like car brakes when you pull back on the thumbwheel.

There’s Comet that has a coloured light continuously shooting past. And you can pick the colour you want and the brightness.

Breathe mode where the light pulses on and off. You can select the speed and again choose the colour.
Transform mode cycles through a range of colours and you can set the speed.

The permanent mode gives you a continuous solid colour, where you can set the brightness.

Or you can choose No Animation which turns the light off completely.

Exway Wave Lights - Throttle
Throttle
Exway Wave Lights - Comet
Comet
Exway Wave Lights - Breathe
Breathe
Exway Wave Lights - Transform
Transform
Exway Wave Lights - Permanent
Permanent
Exway Wave Lights - No Animation
No Animation

The Wave doesn’t come stock with front lights but it is only a $49 add-on which I would highly recommend you get. You can’t get eskate lights with this kind of quality at that price. Plus the lights are perfectly integrated into the Wave.

They plug in at the front and you can then turn them on and off with the remote.

You can have them off during the day and as you ride into the sunset you can turn them on with the flick of a button.

Exway Wave Lights - Front

They’re my two favourite features. But the Exway Wave has unique traits built into every component on the eboard which I’ll go into when I talk about the specs later on.

But for now, let’s do the perfomance tests which is the really fun part.

Range Test

The marketed range on the Exway Wave is 24km and on my test ride I managed to reach 19.24km.

eSkate manufacturers tend to test their range with a rider weighing around 70kg in perfect riding conditions at a pace of around 25kmh.

I’m 90kg and I rode mainly at around 30kmh with the odd top speed test. I also did a fair bit of carving and climbed a few hills.

Oh, and I had the Turbo mode in the app switched on, which is expected to decrease the maximum range in exchange for a higher top speed.

Considering all of these factors, I am VERY happy with the range capability.

To get an idea of what you can expect for yourself, consider your weight. If you’re heavier than me then you can assume you will get slightly less range, if you’re lighter you’re going to get more.

Also have a think about your riding style. If you’re going to be gunning it constantly, your range will be affected. But if you just want to cruise around, you’re going to maximise your range.

Plus, don’t forget that you can buy extra batteries to increase your range.

Exway Wave Performance Tests Data

Top Speed Test

The marketed top speed on the Exway Wave is 38kmh and my tested top speed was 37.4km.

I have no doubt the Wave can max out at 38kmh. The GPS trackers always have small amounts of discrepancy in them, so who knows, in reality I might have even been doing 38kmh.

This speed feels so fast on a short board. I personally would not be riding at this pace ever. It’s cool that it can do this and I bet there are some eSkaters crazy enough to fly around at this speed.

For the everyday rider, you’ll have a speed you’re confident riding at which you’ll stick to most of the time. Mine floats around 30kmh.

But it’s still cool to be able to tell your friends how fast it CAN go.

If you’re considering the Hub version, the top speed might be little less than what’s possible on the Riot kit, but only by a few kms.

Exway Wave Top Speed

Acceleration Test

The acceleration on the Exway Wave is very similar to the Flex. That’s because they use the same 4230 160kV motors.

It’s nice and punchy but aren’t likely to throw you off unless you’re really unprepared for take-off.

With the Hub motor version, the acceleration is a lot more tame and manageable but still not something to be disrespected. It’ll send you flying if you’re not concentrating.

The beautiful thing about the Wave, and all Exway electric skateboards for that matter, is that you can control the acceleration power in the Exway App.

You can really dial it in so that it suits your exact riding style.

Exway Wave Riding

Braking Test

The brakes on the Exway Wave are satisfactory.

They bring you to a complete stop in a reasonable amount of time.

Nothing to rave about, but they are strong enough to get your out of trouble when you need them to.

Again, just like the acceleration, you can control the power of the brakes in the Exway App.

Hill Climb Test

With the Riot kit on, the Exway Wave cruised up one of the steepest hills in my area at an average pace of about 20kmh.

The Hub kit will do it just shy of that, around 18kmh.

This is very much affected by the weight of the rider. You lighter eskaters will get to enjoy faster uphill speeds.

In comparison, these speeds match, if not do a little better than most electric skateboards in this category.

Exway Wave Riding

Features and Specs

That’s all the performance tests done. I’m pretty happy with the results.

But the Wave is more than jusst it’s performance. It’s the product as a whole that makes it my favourite short board.

I’ve already spoken about the lights and swappable battery but there are a handful of other things I want to show you that are really cool too.

The stock wheels on the Exway are some of the best eskate wheels available.

They’re soft enough to soak up a lot of the road vibrations while being firm enough to maximise the amount of range and speed you can achieve.
Plus they are really grippy so you feel confident that the board isn’t going to slip out from underneath you when you’re going around corners at high speeds.

But, they’re not for everyone, so if you fancy putting on some other wheels, that is totally doable with the Riot Kit.
All you need to do is get yourself the correct wheel pulley and you’re good to go. Exway have a great table on their website that can help you with choosing the right setup.

Personally, I’m going to throw on a set of 105mm Cloudwheels for maximum comfort.

Exway Wave Street Wheels

The trucks are Exway’s own Trist trucks which are just awesome!

They’re forged making them really strong, reducing the likelihood of them snapping and they are CNC’d to make them very precise.

This is important because it means the trucks respond predictably and quickly to your body movements. You can be confident when carving out that you’ll come back to centre smoothly and reliably.

The Trist trucks make the Wave a carving machine. I love taking it out on beach trails during sunset and just cruising up and down the bay.

Exway Wave Trist Trucks

The deck is made of a combination fo fibreglass and maple. So it’s a very stiff and strong deck.

This is exactly what you want in a short board for stability. Plus, any flex will cause all sorts of issues to the battery underneath.

It has a small kick tail, perfect for tic-tacing around tight corners and avoiding surprise cracks in the road.

And the overall shape of the deck is designed to give your feet that locked in feeling so you can concentrate on riding rather than constantly looking down at your feet to make sure they’re on the deck.

Exway Wave Deck

A nice touch is the shock-absobing griptape on top which is comfortable and soaks up a lot of the vibrations you get while riding.

This means your feet don’t fatigue as easily and you’ll be able to ride for longer periods before having to rest.

I know this is only a small detail, but there is a tail-guard on the underside of the kick tail. So you can kick up your board easily while ensuring you don’t ruin your deck.. Tail-guards are a lot cheaper to replace than and entire deck.

Exway Wave Tailguard

I briefly allured to the Exway app throughout this review but I want to pay some extra special attention to it because I think it’s one of the things that make Exway stand out from the crowd.

Not only can you control the acceleration, braking and lighting but you can do all sorts of things to make the Exway Wave unique to you.

You can toggle Turbo mode on and off. Having it on gives you an extra speed and acceleration bump while having it off will maximise your range.

The smart turn on feature means you can turn the deck on by simply turning the remote on. Usually, eskaters have to turn the remote on and the deck on separately.

The Standby Time feature in the app let’s you select how long you want the deck to listen for the remote.

For example, say you ride to and from work everyday. You might set the standby to 1 day or 24 hours so that at the beginning of each day when you leave for work and at the end of the work day, all you have to do is put the Wave on the ground, turn the remote on and you’re ready to go.

If you take a day off work or over the weekend and don’t end up using the Wave, the board will turn off completely to reserve it’s battery power.

Free mode allows you to have the ‘Boosted’ style reverse where if you continue to hold the brake on, when you come to a complete stop, the board will move into reverse.

You can also set safety features like restricting the accessible gears. Great if you want to limit how fast your children can go on this board.

You can choose whether or not you want to be able to change gears while moving. Great for advanced riders who want to be able to flick between gears while riding. But also a smart move if you want to turn it off so that you don’t accidentally bump yourself up into a higher gear, accidentally accessing extra power that you weren’t ready for.

There’s also Dash where you can see all sorts of live data relating to the battery and ESC which you can use to diagnose any problems you might be having.

The app is also how you upgrade the firmware when Exway release any new features.

Exway app - power customization
Exway app - features

Final Thoughts

Overall, I love the Exway Wave.

It’s now my go-to choice if I need to duck down to the shops to pick a few things up or if I’m planning to head into the city by train and I want to quickly get to the station and only have a small deck to carry around.

Safety is a big priority for me when I ride so having the lights integrated into the Wave make the choice of choosing the Wave over any other eboard that much easier.

But as you’ve seen it’s not just a board that is all bells and whistles, it also has the performance to go with it.

I couldn’t be happier with it. The Exway Wave really is the best short electric skateboard.

That’s my Exway Wave electric skateboard review. I hope I’ve helped make your search for the best electric skateboard a little easier.

Ride safe out there eSkaters.

Chat soon!

Use code ESKHUB for $15 Off

Exway Wave Riding

Alternatives

Teamgee H20 Mini

Teamgee H20 Mini

The Teamgee H20 Mini is a robust short electric skateboard that challenges most boards when comes to range capability.

enSkate R3 Mini

enSkate R3 Mini

The enSkate R3 Mini is a great value short electric skateboard, especially for the price point it is at.

Backfire Mini

Backfire Mini

The Backfire Mini is a great pocket-rocket  that is compact and easy to store.

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